Clap sound mastery

Elektron Gear Analog Rytm
#1

Is it appropriate to ask sound design questions here? I’m wondering if anyone has ever gotten a clap sound out of the synth engine that sounds like this:

I feel like that’s a synthetic clap sound, so the Rytm should be able to do this with the CP Classic engine if it were programmed right. I hear some filter resonance. The claps in the track sound rounder and softer than the AR claps. Like there’s less attack on each little clap hit element or whatever you call it, and more ticking and static in the AR that I can’t seem to get rid of. I think that’s what I’m hearing.

How do you think they made that clap sound? Maybe I just need to play with it long enough to get it right.

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#3

Off the top of my head, turn any randomness in the clap generator off, tone it down to only 1-3 claps, and give a very slight amp attack value so it doesn’t hit so sharp. Possibly also use the LFO on exponential to further tame or accentuate the attack to taste using fade param. Also LP or BP filter would be useful.

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#4

I’m with Ray Ray on this one. I’ve yet to use a synth that seems to be capable of getting the envelopes right for a clap.

#5

The easy way out is to find a nice Clap sample. You can lay distortion , reverb, pitch shift or stack other percussion on top to give it variation. Probably not the answer you’re looking for, but claps are difficult to synthesize.

#6

try combining sample and synth sections, making the core sound with a sample and then giving liveliness/modulation to the sound with the synth voice?

#7

Thanks, that LFO idea actually helped, but after playing with it, I don’t think it has a soft attack, I think the compression settings I was using made it sound really ticky. Turning off compression helped with the tickyness. Instead of the attack, I modulated the resonance with a sawtooth wave to prevent it from ringing too much. Then I used some amp overdrive to blend in the resonance a bit. I found that it could tolerate a little randomness. I still think the tone of their clap sounds cleaner and less noisy than what I could come up with, but in a mix it might not be noticeable. Here is what I came up with if anyone wants to try and improve it:

Synth:
    RAT: 56
    NUM: 2
    RND: 7
    CPD: 50
    TON: 64
    NOD: 20
    NOL: 40
    LEV: 127
Sample:
    LEV: 0
Filter:
    ATK: 0
    DEC: 64
    SUS: 0
    REL: 64
    FRQ: 94
    RES: 0
    TYP: LP2
    ENV: 0
Amp:
    ATK: 0
    HLD: AUTO
    DEC: INF
    OVR: 46
LFO:
    SPD: +63
    MUL: x16
    FAD: .
    DST: RES
    WAV: SAW
    SPH: 0
    MOD: ONE
    DEP: +22
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#8

Used yours as a starting point and just made some minor tweaks…probably not all that different of a result than yours.

Synth:
    RAT: 56
    NUM: 2
    RND: 7
    CPD: 0
    TON: 100
    NOD: 20
    NOL: 70
    LEV: 127
Filter:
    ATK: 9
    DEC: 5
    SUS: 0
    REL: 64
    FRQ: 100
    RES: 0
    TYP: LP2
    ENV: 20
Amp:
    ATK: 3
    HLD: 1
    DEC: 20
    OVR: 12
LFO:
    SPD: +63
    MUL: x16
    FAD: +49
    DST: OVR
    WAV: SAW
    SPH: 0
    MOD: ONE
    DEP: +50
  • a bit of reverb at the end

I would probably then put this through an HP filter to get it even closer to the sound in the track.

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#9

Just sounds like a regular clap with some decent reverb. Might sound totally different by itself.

#10

Don’t forget to layer sounds !
Snare is here if you need softer…

EDIT : oops it’s about soft attack.

#11

I just took the basic clap, tried some negative envelope depth on the filter (-20), and put some pre delay (48) on the reverb effect.
Sounds like soft attack clap to me.

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#12

Yeah, I think that is better. The slow attack definitely helps. I keep wanting to add like 13 resonance and lower the frequency down to 92-94 as that seems to match the frequency the best. I don’t know, I get ear fatigue trying to listen to such subtle variations in tone. I think you’re right about the HPF.

#13

Well, my main goal is to imitate the sound in that recording. Maybe get better at drum sound design in the process.

#14

That gives it a pretty bad tick on the attack because it’s snapping the filter from 0 to -20.

#15

I’ll give it another go later.
:clock1030:
Later that night., yeh I started from a initial clap engine CPCL, dropped the filter Env to -20, and it was soft and crusey but there is a sweet spot , it can go either way to a tick or doing.
Also tried a ramp LFO affecting destination clap number, which did some ambient shit.

#16

Overdrive Rytm’s clap to 127 and brace for success.

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#17

i see a lot of motivation for patch designs in this thread…

slightly hijacking

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